The Listener has spoken

Published: October 10, 2005

by frog

Opinion about the Green Party’s role in the political scheme of things and its recent electoral efforts are becoming key themes in the media’s post-election analysis. Following on from Daniel Batten in the Herald and Chris Trotter in The Independent, Gordon Campbell has had a go in Endangered Greens, the editorial of this week’s Listener.

As a leader piece in arguably the most-read (tho’ not most red :) ) ‘left’ publication in the country, this will be the viewpoint most likely to be seen by the Greens’ electoral target market.

Like Trotter, Campbell wears the hat of a ‘left’ commentator putting forward the broader left’s judgement on its Green subset’s efforts:

Chances are, capitalism will be robust enough to survive the Greens, the current bogeyman of our chambers of commerce – just as the economy survived earlier figures of dread, such as Jim Anderton and Winston Peters. As a horror movie, the Greens are strictly PG13.

He goes on to echo Trotter’s criticism of the recent effort:

They can hardly have run a more irrelevant election campaign.

and further:

Bereft of a mobilising issue such as genetic modification and outbid by Labour on student loans, the Greens ending up sailing perilously close to political extinction.

In comparing the German experience:

Now, former leader Joschka Fischer has been bidding to get the Greens into the budding radical right-wing regime being fashioned by Merkel. For any Green here who regards direct participation in government as a lifeline, the odyssey of the Greens in Germany makes sobering reading.

Campbell joins Trotter in arguing that the Green Party will gain and maintain support by being radical, and directly disagrees with Batten’s argument that ‘greenism’ is an essentially a mainstream value that the Green Party is disenfranchasing with its broadly ‘left’ policy platform. This is, of course, a philosophical and / or tactical debate that happens within Green Parties all over the world.

Where Campbell does offer some new food for public thought, and varies from Trotter, is when he takes aims at the Greens’ internal workings:

If the Green MPs were on a supermarket shelf, you would be studying their “use by” dates very closely indeed, since their line-up is virtually identical to what it was in 1999. The Greens’ caucus is nearly 53 years old on average, and has just lost Nandor Tanczos, its main youth emblem and drawcard. Fresh talent may be waiting in the wings, such as Russell Norman. Yet the talent will always struggle to make it into the parliamentary arena without big changes occurring in how the Greens compile their party list – which does few favours to its more urban and more sophisticated candidates, and which has promoted the likes of Mike Ward in the past.

The Party’s list building process is fully democratic, unlike most, and as such is a manifestation of the Charter principle of appropriate decisionmaking. This concept is one that marks the Greens out from the broader left, including Labour, in that the ultimate decision rests with the grassroots, who in turn are not expected to put aside their critical reasoning in the interests of collective solidarity.

But nevertheless, Campbell’s point needs to be seriously considered by the party. Like a local body election, there is a danger in a voting process in which most of the enfranchaised take only a passing interest, in that sitting MPs will always have an advantage over new blood through the simple fact of name recognition.

If the caucus and leadership is to be renewed in a party that cannot guarantee more than six to ten candidates getting into Parliament, the wider membership needs to become far more familiar with the ‘next twenty’. Otherwise a top-down strategic overview may have to be built into the list-ranking system. Such a move may be seen by some as compromising a key Green principle, but could become essential.

I’d be interested to hear what you all think on this, particularly those who are Green Party members.

frog says

Published in Campaign | Media by frog on Mon, October 10th, 2005   

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